Do a Flip
by Doctor Starlock
Summary: How ironic that the consulting criminal and his right-hand man should meet this way... Somehow Moriarty always ends up on the top of buildings at crucial moments.


Sebastian stood precariously balanced on the lip of the roof. He heard a passel of pigeons cooing from somewhere below. A crow was perched on the dead power lines looping down from the building. It cawed reproachfully and stared at Sebastian with one shining, scolding eye. Well, what did it know? It sat there judging him, but it probably had no clue what it was like to go every day and everywhere be greeted by nothing, no smiles, no hellos, not one friendly face. That stupid crow didn't know what it meant to be lonely. It didn't know what it was like to wake up and face yet another day stupid, useless, invisible.

Well, Sebastian knew what it was like. He wasn't any good to anybody. He had no friends, no family, and he wasn't appreciated by anyone. Nobody thought his unique abilities were of any use. They ignored him, or patronized him, or worse, scorned him outright. Everywhere he turned he saw a window of opportunity being shattered to glinting pieces. And with every door that slammed shut in his face, he felt the anger and the sadness seeping deeper and deeper into him, their thin fingers feeling down, finding purchase, and gripping, growing, never letting go. It seemed the more filled with sadness he became, the more people turned him away.

The crow cawed again. Sebastian turned away. Even the bloody bird wanted him gone.

Sebastian looked down. The yellowish brown, dusty ground seemed hopelessly far away. He was five stories up-he'd practically killed himself just trying to get up the dilapidated stairs to the roof. The building he was on top of now was empty, gutted, and lifeless. So were all the others. He'd chosen the tallest though. Now he looked down on all the chalky shells of human existence that stood below him, their pane-less windows and empty doorways like the gaping holes of skulls. He could watch them and wonder at all they had seen, what now lurked behind their black empty spaces, as he went down.

Slowly he shuffled to the very edge. His toes hung out over empty space. He could feel the air under his feet. It felt different. It felt like…nothing. And nothing was so freeing, so liberating that it was intimidating, and it made Sebastian's stomach drop straight into his shoes. But for him it wasn't a terrible fear. It was like the feeling before going down the big rise on a roller coaster. Or standing on the end of the tallest diving board before plunging into the water. That one gut-squeezing, heart-stopping instant before you do something astonishing and little scary. Sebastian edged his toes out a little further. He took a deep breath of the dusty, smothering air and looked up at the dull, autumn sun. Last time he would have to look at that wretchedly useful sun. Sebastian felt a bubble rise up in him, a bubble urging him forward, ready to carry him over and down and away...

For a flitting second Sebastian wondered. He wondered whether anyone would care. After he left, would there be anyone who would say, "Poor Sebastian, I'll miss him"? Was there anything he had done, anything he could do that would make people remember him, miss him?

"Do a flip."

Sebastian blinked. He almost would have attributed that suggestion to a voice in his head, except that the command was so ridiculous to him that he knew it could never have come out as some product of his own mind. "Excuse me?" he asked aloud in a meek, tentative voice.

"Do a flip," the same voice repeated.

Sebastian turned around slowly. A man stood on the roof with him. He was an average-looking, unassuming man; average stature, close-cut brown hair, dressed in a grayish tweed trench coat and black dress shoes. The most noticeable feature about him was his eyes-wet and brown, like a dog's, yet glinting and intelligent and a little dead.

"Do a flip?" Sebastian repeated incredulously.

The stranger nodded. "Yes. As long as you're going down, you might as well go out in style."

Sebastian swallowed with difficulty. "Sir, are—are you—making fun of me?" he asked piteously.

The stranger shrugged and took a few swinging, leisurely steps forward. "Oh no, not at all. I promise I have the utmost respect for your feelings. In fact, I can sympathize. I have felt the same way as you now do, at times."

The man stopped and stared out over the view of dilapidated buildings sprawled out before them. He sighed, his voice sprinkled with fond nostalgia.

"Ah yes, my familiar vice, that feeling that you are unappreciated, that no one cares what happens to you. The urge to just end it all, never look back, let it all go. There have even been times when I've been bored, bored, bored with existing, and thought about ending my life just to liven things up." The stranger giggled hysterically.

"You-you've thought about jumping?" Sebastian asked.

"Oh certainly."

"So-so you won't mind watching me jump, then. You won't try to stop me?"

The stranger raised his eyebrows. "Do you want me to try to stop you?"

Sebastian shook his head. "No. Please."

The man shrugged his shoulders. "Very well, then. Carry on."

Sebastian turned back around so he was facing the empty space. Once again he felt the bubble, the urge to bend his knees and then spring forward and-

"It'd be a terrible waste, though."

Sebastian was about to groan aloud when he paused and thought about the words. He turned back to the stranger. "A…waste?"

The man frowned and shook his head. "Terrible waste. A real shame."

Sebastian knit his brow. "Waste of…what?"

"Of you."

"Me!?"

"Naturally. I hate to see human life go to waste." The stranger cut himself off in another fit of giggling. "I'm sorry, I tried to promise myself not to lie. No no, I'll be honest. Who am I kidding? I could care less how much human life is wasted. Except for the truly brilliant ones. It makes me so sad to see a brilliant person willfully waste their abilities on something as trivial as, say, death."

The stranger took a few mores lolling steps forward until he was standing next to Sebastian. Sebastian was still a foot taller than him, as he was still standing on the ledge. The stranger looked up at Sebastian. "That's why it'd be such a shame if you were to jump right now."

Sebastian blinked in puzzlement. "Because I'm…brilliant?"

"Yes, of course," the man replied enthusiastically. "You're definitely brilliant."

Sebastian couldn't seem to wrap his mind round what the stranger was saying about him. "No one's ever said I was…brilliant."

"Oh, most certainly. A man with your abilities is the most pristine specimen of brilliance that I've seen in my life. Well, save my reflection, of course!" The little man tittered at his own joke and then leaned over to peer down at the ground. "It's a long way down, isn't it?"

Sebastian swallowed and nodded. Suddenly the ground seemed impossibly far away. As he looked down at it he noticed that his airy bubble had vanished.

"You know," said the stranger, "there just aren't enough extraordinary men left anymore. The ratio of truly brilliant people to the average idiot has fallen lamentably low in our day and age. I would hate to see it fall any further."

Sebastian swallowed again. "So…you're saying I shouldn't jump?"

The stranger was quick to correct him. "No, no, by all means jump. Don't let me keep you from flying. Just…not yet." He smiled. "I personally like to think of suicide as a…a little joke. A joke on the world. A little bit of irony to wave in everybody's faces. But jumping is the punch line. And no joke is funny if you only hear the punch line. You have to give them something to set up the punch line, to get your audience ready. Only then will they appreciate the irony." The stranger looked up at Sebastian and gave him a reassuring smile. "There is so much you could yet do in the world, especially with your skills. You have all the time in the world to leave your mark, make people notice you, appreciate you. Stick with me, Sebastian, and soon you'll have them all eating out of your hand."

The stranger stepped back and offered his hand up to Sebastian. "So what do you say?" He mouth split in a broad, encouraging smile. "I think it's a little early to be delivering the punch line, don't you?"

For a moment Sebastian was filled with insurmountable hesitation. Even though the bubble was gone, as he stared at the stranger's outstretched palm he could still feel the pull of the edge behind him. He faltered for a moment, and then…

With a slip and a crack, a chunk of mortar dislodged from the ledge and dropped out from under Sebastian's feet. He felt his insides come up in his throat as that terrible sensation of falling took over him, as gravity gripped his body and ripped it towards the ground. It was in that second, in that heart-stopping instant when space yawned beneath him, that Sebastian realized the stranger was right. He was not ready to go. He still had a chance to make an impression. It was too early for him to die. But it was too late.

Suddenly Sebastian felt his whole body wrenched upwards. Breath slammed into his chest like an explosion, and he hung there gasping like a nearly-drowned man, the fabric of his sweater and coat digging into his armpits like wire. The dusty ground was still far below him. For a moment all Sebastian could do was stare down in amazement and wonder why he was not lying on it, crushed and crumpled. Finally he looked up.

Above him was the stranger, his features strained as he held on to the collars of Sebastian's sweater and coat with one hand and braced himself against the roof ledge with the other.

Sebastian choked back sobs of relief. He did his best to scrabble up the wall as the stranger pulled him up and over the side and they both collapsed on the gravelly rooftop. After catching his breath the man stood and brushed himself off, and then he offered his hand to Sebastian and assisted him in standing.

Sebastian stood bent over, his hands braced against his knees as he tried to regain his breath. He looked up at the stranger, winking one eye against the sun.

"You-you saved my life!"

The stranger nodded a little. "Of course. I told you I would hate to see you go to waste."

"Thank you," Sebastian gasped out, and then he stuck out his hand. "Sebastian Moran."

"I know," the stranger replied with a smile. He grasped Sebastian's hand and shook it with a strange mixture of delicacy and firmness.

"And I'm Jim Moriarty."


End file.
